THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you very
much, Jim McKune, for your fine words and, even more, for your fine
work.

I want to say on behalf of all Americans, having had the
opportunity now to fly over the areas of Oregon and Washington which
were damaged by the flood and many of which are still under water, our
country has been watching you and pulling for you and praying for you.
We have a lot of admiration for the incredible work that has been done,
and we're proud of the contributions made by all the groups and all the
individuals who have worked so hard.

I want to thank especially, on behalf of the federal
government, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Director,
James Lee Witt, who is here with me today; the Corps of Engineers, who
used their night scopes to make sure the dikes along the Columbia were
holding strong; the Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena, who is
also here today.

I want to thank the National Guard which has done about
everything it could to help. And I understand they even air-dropped hay
to cattle cut off by water on Sauvie Island. (Applause.)

I want to congratulate and thank Bill Long and Steve
Barrett for the tour I just got of the wall and the work they did to
build it and all those who did it so well. (Applause.) And let me say
a special word of appreciation also to Governor Kitzhaber and my good
friend, Mayor Katz; Senator Hatfield and Senator Wyden, and Congressman
DeFazio and Congressman Bunn. We're going to need them all in the next
few weeks because we don't have enough money right now in the Treasury
to meet all the demands for the problems that Oregon and Washington and
your neighbors in Idaho have gone through, and we're going to have to go
back to Congress and ask for a little help. But I'm sure it will be
there. And I thank them for their support. (Applause.)

I want to say a special word of thanks, too, to the United
States Marine Corps members who worked on this wall. I understand some
of them worked all night long.

I won't keep you here long. I just wanted to come here and
listen, and in a few moments we'll be going to kind of a roundtable
where I'll be hearing about where you are now in the flood recovery
efforts, and getting some suggestions about what else needs to be done.
But I do want to point out something. If you look at this wall behind
us, it seems to me that it is a symbol of what our country does when
everybody pulls together and works together and forgets about their
differences, and focuses their attention and their hearts and their
minds.

I understand it was exactly a week ago when Mayor Katz
learned that the sea walls might be no match for the river, and that you
would have to get an emergency wall up before the river was expected to
crest on Thursday night. Crews worked overnight, but there were too few
of them for such a big job, and without outside help, clearly the wall
couldn't have been ready. So the Mayor called on the people of
Portland. I've had enough experience with the Mayor to know that she's
hard to turn down, but with the aid of the river coming down, I suppose
that focused the attention of the citizens.

Within minutes, 1,000 men and women from all over the area
cast aside what they were doing to come to build the wall -- to hammer
the boards, to wrap them with plastic, to pile the rock, to pass
sandbags hand to hand. Restaurants donated food, carpenters lent
equipment, AmeriCorps volunteers -- young people learning construction
skills -- put their education to work and, as I said, there were even 60
Marines who pitched in and finished the wall on time. When the river
finally crested, it was about where you built the wall.

I have seen similar stories of courage and teamwork all
around this state. We know that a lot of the places hit by this flood
were in very small towns and rural areas, places that often get
overlooked, but places that are really the backbone of our nation --
places from Tillamook County, where dairy farmers sought to save their
cows; to Sherman County, where wheat farmers saved the battle of their
fields; to Marion County, where kids volunteered around the clock to
help in shelters.

There are individual heroes everywhere: A tugboat crew
rescuing a man stranded on top of his house. A police officer jumping
into a debris-filled river to save a life. Rescue workers evacuating
people from their flooded homes. Neighbors helping neighbors move
cattle to higher ground.

But I also think we know that all of these individuals
together really is what made this such an extraordinary, remarkable
experience. This wall will never obscure the triumph that the people
who lost their homes and their lives in the Pacific Northwest -- there
were four lives lost, dozens of people injured, thousands more
evacuated, a lot of farmland was ruined, a lot of livestock was
destroyed. That is a tragedy. It can never be obscured. The roads,
the homes, the businesses, the power lines that were swept away in the
mudslides, the avalanches and the wash-outs, they are many.

And let me say to all of you, the people who experienced
these losses -- a lot of you have rallied to their side in the last
couple of days, and I applaud you for that. But I can tell you, from
years of experience long before I became President, as a governor with
whole communities flooded out, whole towns leveled by tornadoes, the
going will get tough again for these people in a week, or two weeks, or
three weeks. Many of them are almost in shock now. But they will have
to come to grips with the dimensions of their losses.

And so I ask you all -- everybody who put a shoulder to
build this wall and everybody who has done anything else in the last few
days, be on the lookout for your friends and neighbors for the next few
weeks, because a lot of them will have to come to grips with enormous
personal loss and anxiety and pain, and they will need you then as well.

I want to thank you for doing your part, for pulling
together. You will have our help, I assure you of that, in the job of
cleaning up and rebuilding. And we will help you until it is finished.
Today, I'm going to survey the damage, as I said, talk with members of
your congressional delegation, with your state and local officials, with
the citizens who are dealing with this. We want to know what more we at
the national level can do to help.

I want you to understand that I know that this is not just
an emergency for a few days or a week. We have been committed -- we are
still working on the hurricanes that hit Florida years ago. We have
continued to work on the terrible floods that hit the Middle West a
couple of years ago. We are trying to finish the work of dealing with
the aftermath of the earthquake and the fires that hit California. We
know that we have to be your partners until the complete work of
rebuilding the lives, the economy and the communities that were damaged
by this flood is over. And I look forward to that. (Applause.)

When I became President, one of the things I promised
myself I would do is to at least see that the federal government did a
good job when disaster struck. I have lived in a state which had the
highest per capita incidents of tornadoes in America, and I know what
it's like when you need help and it's not there.

I am proud of the fact that, where it used to take a month
or more for families who were hurt in disasters to get checks, now you
can call an "800" number and get it within days. Already more than
3,500 Oregonians have registered for help, and the first checks were
mailed to them today. (Applause.)

The Small Business Administration will do everything in its
power to get Oregon's small business communities up and running again.
And I am pleased to announce today emergency grants from other
government agencies. The Department of Transportation is today
committing $10 million to help repair highways damaged by the flood.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is speeding $10.3
million for community development and housing assistance. The
Department of Labor is providing $2 million in emergency funds for
dislocated workers.

And today, we are opening two disaster recovery centers in
Tillamook and Clackamus counties. Residents can go to the center and
meet with representatives of all the federal and state agencies that are
taking part in the recovery. So those who can't get everything they
want or need over the "800" number will be able to go in and deal with
someone face to face. I know that it takes time to get this done. But
let me say again, we can do it.

I hope you will never forget this wall behind me, and,
goodness knows, I hope you never need it again. But I hope you will
always remember for as long as you live what the people of Portland did
in one remarkable day. And I hope that all of us will find in our minds
and hearts the wisdom and strength to be a little more like the people
of Portland were on that one day every day of the year. If we had that
kind of cohesion, that kind of common commitment, we'd really be in
pretty good shape.

When I was up in Washington a couple of hours ago, I went
to the home of a man, 70 years old, hard of hearing, lost everything he
had in his home including his hearing aid. And all he did the whole
time I saw him -- he and his wife were there and their two daughters had
come in, their granddaughter trying to help them deal with the aftermath
of losing everything in a home they had lived in for decades -- and all
he did was crack jokes the whole time I was there -- (laughter) --
trying to keep everybody else in a good humor.

And he said, "You know, it's amazing how all these total
strangers showed up to help me." He said, "People were going down into
my basement, which I turned in to an indoor swimming pool -- (laughter)
-- and really risking getting hurt pretty seriously trying to help me
save the few little things I've accumulated in my life." And he said,
"I'm real grateful, but I just wish we could all be that way every day."
And that's a pretty good pearl of wisdom from a man who, at the age of
70, is looking at a future without anything that he had just a couple of
days ago.

Let me close by asking you to remember that today is your
state's birthday. (Applause.) On February 14, 1857, the people of the
Oregon Territory decided their bond to each other was strong enough to
sustain a state. The spirit that brought statehood was alive and well
again here last week. May that spirit heal the wounds of recent days
and may it continue to grow and flourish for another 139 years and
beyond.